Tag: twitting

I was talking with a friend the other day about how I come up with my blog posts. Any blogger knows that it’s not an easy feat to put out many posts a week. My friend is thinking of starting a blog and her biggest concern is whether or not she would be able to come up with enough topics to sustain a 3-5 posts a week schedule.

I understood her apprehension and didn’t sugar coat things. It’s difficult. At times it’s a task that seems impossible, but I gave her a piece of advice that I am sharing with you now.

Use Your Opinions

What is going to set your blog apart from other blogs? It’s most likely not your topics. Most blogs about blogging cover the same few main ideas over and over. Most blogs about graphic design say the same things over and over. What is going to set you apart is your voice and your opinions.

In the spirit of this advice, which seemed to strike a nerve with my friend, and therefore, I hope one with you as well, I am starting off a week of opinions! I am going to write all my posts this week on an opinion I have about my industry. Let’s get started.

I think blogging is the most important part of social media.

I’ve gotten so good at giving this lecture that I basically have it memorized. However, I still find a lot of resistance to it. Small businesses I talk to want to get on Facebook and Twitter and use the “popular” platforms. Everyone is doing it and they want to do it too!

That’s not a good enough reason. Unless you know how to use Facebook and Twitter to increase your reputation and build your business you could just come off looking like an ass.

Using FB and Twitter for business isn’t about posting any post, it’s about posting deliberate and targeted posts. And that can be very difficult if you’re not a restaurant announcing a special or a clothing store announcing a sale.

That’s why I always suggest that small businesses use blogging as a way to increase their social media effectiveness.

It works like this:

You write a blog post that shows you know your business, you’re an expert, and you deserve to be thought of as among the best of the best. Then you send that blog posts out to your customers using Facebook and Twitter.

It’s so much more successful at showing people why they should be following you.

You have accomplished the following:

- Proven yourself an expert

- Used Facebook and Twitter to disseminate real information and opinions rather than just little blurbs about how you’re feeling or what’s going on that particular day

- Increased your SEO

- Added value to your readers and customers

Blogging really is an important part of social media. There are obviously companies that use FB and Twitter without blogging to great success. And there is obviously a chance that you could do that too. But I also truly believe that adding a blog to your business will only help your social media efforts – not hurt them.

What do you think? Do opinions matter? Are blogs as important as I make them out to be?